Mastodawn

Shoq 🌿Mar 12, 2023

Not to skew the results any, but please think carefully before you choose option 3 here. Can you really think of nothing in your home, work, civic, financial, medical, education, or spiritual life, that you'd have no reservations about being so public about? None?

Olav Mar 12, 2023

@shoq I probably should have picked 'don't care' because truth is, there are plenty things I don't talk about on social media. My [current/recent] employer, the names of my kids, etc. Anything actually sensitive shouldn't be anywhere on social media. E2EE chat, email, etc are far more appropriate (and secure)

Shoq 🌿Mar 12, 2023

@olavf "Sensitive matters" are just one category things we might discuss. There's also simple courtesy issues like forcing your followers to mute your arguments over whether one brand of super glue works better than another, or whether your mom's dementia symptoms or bowel habits are better or worse than the norm.

David Slifka Mar 12, 2023

@shoq @olavf I’d love if software let people follow me for topic X but not Y, and I’d love to refine my follows similarly. But totally separate accounts seem like a not-great implementation of this need, I think?

@davidslifka
@shoq with the caveat that my food website federates new recipes (only, no blog) and v3 photography website will federate it's blog when ready, partitioning social media down to minutiae only sows confusion except for particular things like professional vs personal, and exclusive content like only talking about adhesives. But a personal account can be expected to cover all those things too, at least on a limited basis.

@olavf @davidslifka It doesn't matter why you may or may not need one. It only matters that you might, on any occasion, need or want one. I maintain that most of us already have at least one anyway, even if it's rarely admitted. I'm not speaking of sock puppets here. Merely keeping our lives compartmentalized. I don't need someone's judgments about my politics, if they mostly follow me for inventions, and vice versa. Nor do I want to explain my choices to a crowd. Nor should anyone have to.

Olav

@shoq @davidslifka don't get me wrong ~ I definitely see the need for keeping advocacy separate in circumstances, especially where it can affect employment, etc. But for most people, a generic account is all they need.

@olavf Are these we are using "generic accounts," in your view?

@shoq "general" would be a better term, and at least mine is. Here I post anything from MH advocacy to the occasional shitpost. But I guess you're right in that I'm moving towards creating an entire instance devoted to shitposts.

@olavf Excellent example. We all have our lanes, boundaries, and preferences. As a technologist, I want to recognize and empower choices whenever possible.

@shoq if it explains anything, the shitpost community would be almost entirely current and former Farkers.
It's on hold waiting for either Mastodon to support 'groups' or a managed Frendica host for the same reason.
Which solves a lot of problems, but what we both want is Hubzilla's "personas" that has finite control down to the account descriptions people can see. Alas.

@olavf Yes, Hubzilla was really appealing because of that. He clearly understands my points. Sidebar: And yes, as I have said before, I think instances won't be a thing much longer; groups will be. The question is, who pays for the servers if there's a breakdown of "community" value. But even groups require identity,. The basic problem is still the same. WHO chooses to reveal what to a group. It must be a choice.

@shoq large, centralized instances are bad. Not just hardware, or moderation, but increasing regulatory requirements.

Plus, done right a small/medium instance has a community in the "home" feed. Presumably you'd pick one based on primary interest (mine is currently space-related) and expand from there. Groups otoh don't require being on a single instance, but I don't know if they can transfer ownership. The instance I have in mind would allow for transfer of ownership.